You’re always collecting leads. You get referrals from past clients, friends, and family. You collect prospects from your website and other marketing efforts.
But it’s not worth keeping every lead forever in your address book or customer relationship management (CRM) system. Ask these three questions to figure out who to keep and who might need to go.
Are They Ready?
If your neighbor mentions that he’s thinking about someday buying a bigger home, you should note that he’s not ready to buy or sell today. Conversely, a prospect who indicates on your web form that he wants to interview listing agents tomorrow should be tagged as such.
Categorize your leads into buckets that make sense to you. They should indicate if the lead is ready now, will be in a specified time period, or hasn’t given a time frame.
Did They Provide Good Data?
Prospects who give you incomplete or bogus information about their real estate needs might not be worth your time. However, many of these are judgment calls.
It’s easy to delete Abraham Lincoln, who entered a phone number of 713-123-4567 and said he was looking for “outhouses in Harris County.” It’s harder when a prospect omitted a last name, made a typo in his email address, and didn’t indicate what property or services he was interested in.
Are They Engaged?
Leads who have unsubscribed from your email messages or otherwise indicated that they don’t want to hear from you are obvious candidates for removal. However, what about contacts who seem disinterested or are unengaged? Set some criteria to establish who qualifies as “unengaged.”
Some CRM systems help you track interactions—they may track engagement on your website and social media channels. But you can take a low-tech approach. For example, a contact is “unengaged” if you haven’t had a conversation or exchanged messages in the past 12 months. Or you’ve reached out three times in the past 18 months without a reply.
None of these questions on their own will give you enough information to decide whether to delete a lead. However, the answers to all three taken together provide a clearer picture of whether the prospect is worth pursuing.